Day: 07/17/2015

Colorado board votes no on allowing medical marijuana for PTSD

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28487952/colorado-board-votes-no-allowing-medical-pot-ptsd

The Colorado Board of Health voted 6-2 — amid shouts, hisses and boos from a packed house — not to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the medical conditions that can be treated under the state’s medical marijuana program.

The board voted Wednesday against the recommendation of the state’s chief medical officer.

A dozen of the veterans who testified said cannabis has saved their lives. Many said drugs legally prescribed to them for PTSD at veterans clinics or by other doctors — antidepressants, antipsychotics, opioids and others — nearly killed them or robbed them of quality of life.
“It is our brothers and sisters who are committing suicide every day. We know cannabis can help. We’re not going to go away,” said John Evans, director of Veterans 4 Freedoms…

The American and Colorado psychiatric associations do not support it, said board member Dr. Ray Estacio, an internist at Denver Health and associate professor in medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus…

“Blood is on your hands,” one audience member shouted after the board voted not to make Colorado the 10th state to allow medicinal marijuana use for PTSD…

Wolk said listing PTSD as a treatable condition would increase transparency and reveal actual usage, shedding light on its effectiveness and reinforcing a physician-patient relationship for many users.

Many veterans are self-medicating with recreational marijuana or using medical marijuana ostensibly as pain treatment, although it is really for PTSD, he said.

Currently allowed uses of marijuana include pain (93 percent of recommendations), cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, muscles spasms, multiple sclerosis, severe nausea and wasting disease (cachexia).

Dr. Doris Gundersen, a psychiatrist who spoke at the meeting, said only 4 percent to 5 percent of the state’s physicians recommend medical marijuana to patients. About 15 physicians make 75 percent of the recommendations, she said. The state has roughly 14,000 licensed doctors…

One of the state-funded medical marijuana investigators, Sue Sisley, who is looking at effects on veterans’ PTSD, said federal policy on marijuana is a prime reason research is scant. It will take at least four years for her study, she said, because the team has been delayed in getting the study drug, still illegal under federal law, from the authorized supplier — the U.S. government…

Fibro Mystery No Cure With Legalized Drugs but Marijuana Still Proves Effective

http://cannaiq.com/fibromyalgia-mystery-no-cure-with-legalized-drugs-but-marijuana-still-proves-effective/

For most of those who suffer, however, medically manageable is not all that it seems. Many with Fibromyalgia take enough pills to feel like addicts, but with very little result, if any. Only three drugs are approved to help the symptoms of Fibro, and they certainly help pharmaceutical companies bring in the big bucks, but they do not seem to help those taking the drugs. Cymbalta, Lyrica, and Savella are among the most recommended, but most patients do not see a difference for the better. In fact, research shows that 61 percent of 1,300 people said that the three drugs had no effect at all, while only 10 percent said that it was effective. Many of those surveyed even said that they feel worse on medications, with more symptoms spawning from the pills than from the disease…

Morgan Freeman, a sufferer of Fibromyalgia since his car accident, told the world that he was all for legalization of marijuana “across the board.” Freeman stated that he has found that weed is the only thing that helps his Fibro and that he takes it in any form that he can, whether it be smoking, eating, or drinking it…

5 Awful Realities Of Life With An ‘Invisible Illness’

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1704-5-awful-realities-life-with-invisible-illness.html

#5. People Constantly Accuse You Of Faking Your Illness

We’re trying to move past our illness and be productive members of society, but society seems angry at us for looking normal. Like my ex-coworker, who used to accuse me of faking my MS-induced seizures to get out of work. Or my father, whom I have worked with for the last three years. He’s watched me wriggling on the floor amidst an MS attack twice without doing anything to help. Part of him just didn’t know what to do, but another reason why he just stood there was the gossip in the building about how my seizures were just exaggerated “dramatics” (in his defense, I am a huge theater junkie). Things are better between us now, and if I collapse in front of him, he’s sure to call for an ambulance or rush me to the ER himself. Though, even that’s not safe ground: You can roll up on the emergency room with handwritten notes from every doctor from Doom to House, and the ER staff still won’t believe you have MS unless you look the part.

Young, inexperienced nurses and doctors will sometimes have MS patients tested for fibromyalgia (aka the “uncertain shrug” disorder). Or, worse: They once tested my blood alcohol levels because they thought the MS-induced slurred speech and stuttering were from multiple shots instead of sclerosis.

#4. If You Need Disability, You Might Have To Cheat The System

I still have a job, but I probably can’t keep doing it forever. For people in my situation, going on disability is often the only option we have. But, here’s how infuriatingly difficult that process can be: When I was a teenager, I had a boss whose daughter had advanced MS. It took two court cases and more than $7,000 in legal fees before she could get the money to feed her kids. The woman in question was legally blind and had no control of her left leg. Now, try to imagine convincing those same bureaucrats that you need financial help when you don’t even look “sick.”

Real World Results Differ from Drug Studies

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2015/07/16/antidepressant-drug-studies-differ-from-the-real-world/

The result is that studies of antidepressants don’t really tell doctors or patients how well the drugs will work in real life. In fact, most antidepressants have a disappointing performance in clinical practice compared to how well they do in highly controlled clinical trials…

Sally The Spider

“Some spider silks are really strong, but not all of them are. The ones that are really strong can actually rival steel and approach the tensile strength of Kevlar.”  Cheryl Hayashi

“The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web.”  Edwin Way Teale

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”  Pablo Picasso

(Photo taken 7/3/2015.)

States Use Facial Recognition Technology to Address License Fraud

http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/states-crack-down-on-drivers-license-fraud2.html

At least 39 states now use the software in some fashion, and many say they’ve gotten remarkable results…

But critics raise concerns about privacy invasion and potential abuse. While photo database access is limited to the department of motor vehicles (DMV) in some states, others allow sharing with law enforcement.

For a long time, it was hard for states to crack down on identity thieves and fraudsters, given their lack of manpower. But officials say that has no longer been the case since they started using facial recognition. Among the cases uncovered in the last two years:

_In New York, a sanitation worker was charged with impersonating his dead twin brother and collecting more than $500,000 in disability benefits over 20 years.

_In Iowa, a fugitive who escaped from a North Carolina prison while serving time for armed robbery in the 1970s was identified when he tried to apply for a driver’s license using another name.

_In New Jersey, a man was charged with using false identities to get two fraudulent commercial driver’s licenses to drive trucks. His licenses had been suspended 64 times, including six times for DUI convictions.

“A driver’s license is a strong, dependable form of ID,” Slagle said. “We want to make sure the people who are getting the licenses are who they claim to be.” …

One of the ways that people get prescription medications illegally is to use a false driver’s license.  Pharmacist Steve says it’s very important for pharmacists to know the difference between a real and fake driver’s license, and I assume this facial recognition software could also be used for these purposes.  Will pharmacies be the next place we see this technology in practice?

When I moved to New Mexico and had to get a new driver’s license, the DMV used this kind of software to identify me.  I noticed all the cameras when I walked in the door, but first thought they were just for security purposes.  However, they knew the reason I was there before I even walked up to the counter.  Yeah, it was a little freaky.

These facial recognition databases are being used like the PDMPs.  At some point, it’s likely that anyone who fills any type of prescription medication will be included in the PDMPs, especially as this information is shared in some states with pharmacy benefit managers and insurance corporations.  And like with PDMPs, this technology can obviously be abused:

https://www.privacysos.org/node/926

You are walking down the street minding your own business when a police officer taps you on the shoulder from behind. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he says, “Could I see some identification?” You know your rights and you say no. “You don’t really have a choice, ma’am. We have a positive identification of you from a camera that says you are Jill Stokes. Are you Ms. Stokes?” You nod, confused. “You owe the city $500 in parking tickets, ma’am.”

That’s a benign but totally plausible example of how the eradication of anonymity in public via unchecked identification and surveillance technologies will fundamentally change our lives. For even more troubling examples, think about how easily a government agency (or corrupt cop) could identify and track a political activist, whistleblower, or domestic violence survivor in the once-anonymous, bustling streets of our (now surveillance camera laden) cities. The agent or cop doesn’t even need to be in the same city as his target…

Face recognition can only work like it does on CSI if every single one of our faces is in a database accessible to the FBI or to local police. After all, plenty of people are first time criminals. So to catch every criminal using these tools, you’d need to have a database ready with every face in it — whether or not someone has an arrest record, no matter what that arrest record looks like. For many of us, this kind of “guilty until proven innocent,” “everyone is a suspect” policing methodology seems Orwellian and distasteful…

Thanks to federal grant programs from the Department of Transportation, at least 35 states have active face recognition programs at their registries of motor vehicles. The states say they use the software to detect fraud and abuse, for example to catch someone applying for a drivers’ license under a false name when they already have an ID under their real name. But numerous states are increasingly using the face recognition programs for law enforcement purposes, too. And a new FBI program, disclosed to the public in documents submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the July 2012 hearing on face recognition, makes good use of that federally-funded face recognition technology at motor vehicle registries nationwide for purposes quite apart from fraud detection…

The FBI is working with a number of states to bolster the locals’ face recognition capabilities, as well:

“In February 2012, the state of Michigan successfully completed an end-to-end Facial Recognition Pilot transaction and is currently submitting facial recognition searches to CJIS. MOUs have also been executed with Hawaii and Maryland, and South Carolina, Ohio, and New Mexico are engaged in the MOU review process for Facial Recognition Pilot participation. Kansas, Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Missouri are also interested in Facial Recognition Pilot participation.” …

Can Funny Traffic Signs Save Drivers’ Lives?

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-can-roadside-witticisms-save-lives.html

Every Monday, it’s a new message. One week signs displayed “Steering wheel: not a hands-free device.” Another week, they showed “Turn signals: the original instant message.” To discourage speeding, the agency used “It’s not a race, leave some space.” …

Utah launched its effort this spring with “That seat belt looks good on you,” which is still the message that received the most positive feedback. The state only displays the safety messages on Mondays, but it also shows the year-to-date count of road deaths every Friday.

Gleason said Utah got the idea, along with some of the messages, from other states. Massachusetts, for example, got a lot of attention last year for a campaign that played off of the regional dialect, with signs such as “Changing lanes? Use yah blinkah” and “Make yah ma proud, wear yah seatbelt.”

Iowa began posting safety witticisms nearly two years ago. It’s taken inspiration from pop culture (“May the 4th be with you. Text I will not” on Star Wars Day) and used humor (“Get your head out of your apps”) to get its points across. One of the most popular messages, though, succeeded on its content and clever formatting (“Pass on left; drive on right,” with the message divided accordingly)…